After spending the first four days of November canvassing for a major liberal presidental candidate (guess who??), I immediately noticed how important door-to-door, face-to-face interaction was to the success of the campaign. The enthusiasm of a volunteer who is passionately committed to their cause is easily lost over an email or a text message, no matter how many exclamation points are used.

I also noticed how, despite the major advances in technology, there was a huge missed opportunity in the canvassing process. Thousands of sheets of paper were being printed out by organizers, written on by volunteers, and processed back at headquarters by data entry staff/volunteers. Not only was excess paper being used, but a number of volunteers were relegated to data entry, instead of being out on the field getting the vote out. It was all expertly organized and choreographed, but I couldn't help but think of some way to make it better...

Sondeo allows any non-profit or grassroots campaign to quickly collect canvassing data and interpret it, eliminating the need for data entry and significantly reducing paper waste. As a canvasser travels from door to door, they send the data collected to headquarters via SMS, and their results are immediately entered into a database.

Through any web browser, a lead organizer can create a new canvass, determine the questions to be asked, the responses that will be given, plan the routes that will be handed out, and print out lists and directions for the canvassers to use. Once the canvassers are out on the field, the lead organizer can monitor their results in real-time, see which areas are most responsive, which canvassers are most effective, and determine which areas will need more coverage in the future.

Sondeo will be open source, without any political affiliation or bias. It will allow for the quick import of an existing contact database, and export of the canvassing information collected for further analysis. By combining face to face interaction with instant data entry and monitoring, Sondeo will make the canvassing efforts of any organization cheaper, quicker and more effective. In addition:

Both Eric (the lead developer) and I worked on the Knowmore.org Firefox Extension, 2nd place finalist at the Netsquared conference in 2008. Our work with Knowmore (a wiki for corporate responsibility, where anyone in the community can add information about corporations) inspired us both to fight for social justice wherever we can, and also taught us the power of combining technology and shared knowledge/research to educate others about injustice.

Eric has since worked for Social Actions as a lead programmer, and is currently contracted with Mozilla's support site. I (Tom) work with music and technology at my company, Supply And Demand Music.